Research Journal

I have been steadily plugging away at many branches of the family, but most intensively in the Martinson family. I am working on a detailed, published report about Ole and Thora Martinson, and hope to include as much descendancy information as I can find before I actually publish and distribute it. I am hopeful to hear from distant family members, and I have my fingers crossed that they may have some photographs of some of my early Norwegian ancestors and relatives. The Martinson family were among the first settlers of the Dakota Territory, moving to land near Fort Abercrombie on the Red River way back in 1870.

I also have update the site today with a large number of new details throughout. The last update was in March, and this has been a productive few weeks.

Well, I've been looking further into the interrelated Teigen family. Many of my paternal grandmother's family were Teigens, and many branches of that family wound up in Minnesota eventually. I've mentioned my occasional communication with a distant cousin in Olso, and it is this large family which ties me to him. The Teigen farm itself is right in the middle of Kvam proper, in close proximity to the Kvam church. There is more work to be done, because there are some confusing branches to the tree, but I think today's update presents the most accurate picture I can find at this point. I'll be making changes today only to the individuals lists.

Individuals: 8010 • Families: 2485 • Surnames: 1684

I spent part of my day at the Minnesota History Center library today, tracking down a number of obituaries and a few other pieces. I've been able to track down a bit more information about the immigrant Ole Martinson through those reports, and also some recent poking about I have done in the North Dakota vital records online.

I knew Ole Martinson married and started his family in Norway, and reports were that he came first to Wisconsin where some of his children were born before moving to the Dakota territory near Fort Abercrombie in the Red River valley south of Fargo. I now know the Martinsons went to Coon Prairie in Vernon County (a few miles south of Westby, which is a Scandinavian community). They were there from about 1866 until they relocated to Richland county in North Dakota in 1871 or 1872, with a stopover in Pope county Minnesota where they appear in the 1870 census.

Using the obituary reports in the Watson Voice and the Milan Standard newspapers, I have identified a number of new birth, death and marriage dates, and a few names of spouses for sisters in the Sandbo and Martinson families.

Equally exciting, I have recently made contact with a genealogical researcher who has married into the Sandbo clan. Jeannee now lives in Florida, but she married a descendant of Joe Huseby and Hannah Sandbo. Her information is well researched, and I hope to learn more from her; although she and I have made some conflicting conclusions about some of the early 19th century family members. I imagine we both have made some faulty choices, and by sharing source material with one another we are likely to find something more like the truth.

It feels good to be engaged and excited about this project again.

Individuals: 7772 • Families: 2412 • Surnames: 1643

I've been working more slowly the past year or so on the family history. I have received a few corrections and additions from distant family members on a wide variety of branches. The most significant addition in today's update of the family lists comes from the Eidebøka, and corrects and adds to the maternal family of Bård Ødegård.

I won't imply that I will make updates very frequently from here on out, but I remain diligent to finding new information. Currently I have hit a number of roadblocks and I hope to continue to work on those. The most interesting to me remain the Italian branches of the family, as well as the Campbells of my maternal line.

Individuals: 7695 • Families: 2390 • Surnames: 1629

On Saturday, August 25, I spent a lovely day with my mother-in-law driving through the far south-western corner of New York state where she grew up. Our goal was to locate and photograph a number of old homesteads and burial sites for the several generations of her ancestors that settled there. We had a nice lunch in the town of South Dayton, and followed that with a visit to her parents grave and the house they shared, remembered fondly by the five grandchildren.

We next drove around, following her memory (and our shared intuition) to find a number of other burial sites. The happiest discovery was when we stumbled upon the Perrysburg cemetery where I knew there were some family members interred, but we quickly discovered there were more family members there than we had realized. The earliest pair there were Schuyler Marvin and his bride Elizabeth Bertholf Marvin who settled in Perrysburg after moving west from Orange County, New York (near Westpoint along the Hudson River, just north of Westchester County).

All told we found burial sites for at least fourteen family members, including ten direct ancestors. We also located and photographed more than five houses, either currently or previously inhabited by family members. The best part of the day for me, of course, was to have a much needed opportunity to just hang out with Pat. We had a really nice time.

Over Memorial Day weekend, my cousin Brian Bergsetter found his mother's collection of family photographs, and placed them into my hands for safe keeping and sharing with the family. It was a huge bound album filled with photos, some I had seen and others not. Ina Mae (Odegard) Bergsetter was a librarian, so of course the photos are laid out logically, each of her parents and siblings with their own section, arranged chronologically.

I plan to scan these photos, when I can, but in the mean time, the prize of the collection is a photo I had not seen. Her father (my great grandfather) Baard Odegard arrived in the U.S. in 1889 at the age of 23. Apparently, one of the earlier things he did was have his photo taken, and Ina Mae had the only copy I am aware of—so I had not seen it. There are other prizes as well, to be shared when I can scan them. Thanks Brian!!!

So, I had to prune a whole limb off the tree today and will start exploring the new one. Up Kate's Marvin line, Seth Marvin (b.1839 - d.before 1920) was married to Lucinda Robbins (b. about 1847). Seth did not serve in the Civil War, although he was of an appropriate age. I had some information that Lucinda's father was a John Robbins born in Vermont, and much census data supported the born in Vermont thing. Today I learned from the 1860 census that her parents were David and Julia Ann Robbins of Perrysburg, New York. David also was born in Vermont.

The John Robbins I had been researching had Mayflower ancestry. That line was a bad assumption, it seems, and now I must find more about David Robbins and his wife Julia Ann. With any luck, it is the same Robbins family from Vermont? Perhaps I'll find out one day.

Over the past couple of months I have added a few names here and there in my Norwegian and Yankee/British branches of research. With many more than 500 people added, it was definitely time to update the name lists—an easy but time consuming process.

Individuals: 7640 • Families: 2370 • Surnames: 1613

Wow, I've been getting tons of correspondence from distant cousins all over the place. This afternoon alone I got maps and resource links from a Norwegian cousin and transcript family data for Mohr relatives from a distant cousin in the Eastern U.S. somewhere. I sent an e-mail to Tor Onshus, as well, because I penetrated another generation for the Martinson clan by sifting carefully through the Norwegian 1801 census. Plus I've spent quite a bit of time updating some of the Norway maps, photo pages and family sheets to add to (and in a few cases correct) what I had already, including an extra level of detail of aerial photographs of the area around Kvam. I'm home sick today and it's giving me something low energy to do—I'm loving it.

I posted some photo requests on the find-a-grave website, and someone was kind enough to respond to my requests today. I intend to send my thanks to her tomorrow. She sent me photos for: Ruth Paddock Campbell (1784-1855), John J. Campbell (1775-1821) and Barbara Campbell (b.1805?). I love the look of headstones from this era.